Why do so many med students match into internal medicine?

[sundays24]

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Is it because it's a popular speciality, or that it has the most number of spots, or that it's an easy speciality to get into, etc?

On MSAR it says that of the students who graduated from 2011-2014, 39% at Harvard, 42% at NYU, 34% at Yale, 29% at UCLA, and 29% at UW matched into internal medicine. The rest of the specialties had percentages ranging from 1% to 10%.

 

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

It's a broad specialty with a very high number of patients. The doctor where you go to get your physical is likely an internal medicine doctor, and almost definitely a family medicine doctor otherwise. In fact it's pretty similar to family medicine except that it's adults only. Also, it's the specialty that many other specialty doctors (such as oncologists, nephrologists, and cardiologists) have to go through first before getting training in their sub-specialty.

 

[colbgw02]

It's a broad specialty with a very high number of patients. The doctor where you go to get your physical is likely an internal medicine doctor, and almost definitely a family medicine doctor otherwise. In fact it's pretty similar to family medicine except that it's adults only. Also, it's the specialty that many other specialty doctors (such as oncologists, nephrologists, and cardiologists) have to go through first before getting training in their sub-specialty.

Agree with this. Also, internal medicine departments tend to pay attention to and care about medical students, which attracts applicants. The nature of internal medicine is such that medical students are frequently more involved and useful than they are during other rotations. And, not entirely unrelated to that, I think internists tend to have the personality type that values medical students more than many other fields.

 

[Lucca]

IM is the gateway to many subspecialties in addition to being a pathway to becoming a general internist or primary care physician.

 

[cbrons]

You have to complete an internal medicine residency in order to do a fellowship in cardiology, pulmonary/critical care, endocrinology, gastroenterology, allergy/immunology, nephrology, infectious disease, oncology, rheumatology, etc. Here is a full listing: Internal Medicine Subspecialties Career Information | ACP

 

[Raryn]

Is it because it's a popular speciality, or that it has the most number of spots, or that it's an easy speciality to get into, etc?

On MSAR it says that of the students who graduated from 2011-2014, 39% at Harvard, 42% at NYU, 34% at Yale, 29% at UCLA, and 29% at UW matched into internal medicine. The rest of the specialties had percentages ranging from 1% to 10%.

Internal medicine categorical programs are roughly 1/4 of all residencies. It's by far the largest field in medicine, more than twice as large as family medicine (the second largest).

In addition, anyone who does Anesthesia, Dermatology, Ophthalmology, PM&R, Radiology, and a few other specialties that can start as PGY2s have to do an intern year in either Medicine, Surgery, or both (a "transitional year"). The vast majority of these people either do the transitional year (which is actually notoriously easy for an intern year) or IM, so depending on how the MSAR counts prelims for harvard and co, those students may be double counted under IM and their actual eventual specialty.